Category Archives: Places Adipur- Gandhidham

Babitaji suggested that she herself call Hirani when he had still not made up his mind about the film’s heroine.

So at momma’s behest, Bebo contacted Raju bhai, saying that since he’s a Sindhi and she’s half-Sindhi (Babitaji is a Sindhi), he should be a little partial to the community and give her preference over other actresses.

Rajni tells me that Raju bhai could only blush at this statement made by heroine.

But when he was probed further about his ‘bias,’ he enthused that he and Bebo bonded big time over Sindhi food, which she’d get on the sets during the shoot.

Wah, kya baat hai.

Litreature: Sindhi Poems

The Sindhi Adabi Sabha has been organising monthly literary gatherings of Sindhi writers ever since its inception in 2005

As far as I have seen, poems in English do not garner an audience among Sindhis.

They (Sindhis) do read quite a lot of English prose, but they keep away from English poetry,” laments poet Aruna Jethwani. And perhaps it was keeping such a view in mind that the Sindhi Adabi Sabha, Pune organised a poem recitation in English, along with a simultaneous translation of the same in Sindhi .

The programme Kavi – Anuvadak, which was organised in association with the Sahitya Akademi, took place on June 5 at the Indulakshmi auditorium in St Mira’s college.

“The programme was a great success,” says Govardhan Sharma ‘Ghayal’ of the Sindhi Adabi Sabha.

“The response was very good, with many teachers, professors and doctors attending the function and it was a new experiment, of providing Sindhi translations for English poetry, for which we had especially called a translator from Mumbai.

ADIPUR-GANDHIDHAM:

Remembering addresses is a piece of cake at the Sindhi resettlement township in Adipur. All it comprises is a few alphabets and numbers.

No wonder residents claim to have the shortest addresses in the country.

Addresses like SDR69, SDX50, CBX56, TRS69, SBD4 are common here. And, people here look for each other’s houses by these codes, which for an outsider will appear strange. But, the code is simple for residents as they denote the type of house, the locality and house numbers.

And, in case you are thinking that such addresses were decided upon on someone’s whims and fancies then you will be wrong.

The master plan for twin towns of the Adipur-Gandhidham was prepared by an Italian architect Mario Baccheocci in 1949, but the unique addresses were suggested by a group of German engineers and planners, who lived in the township while building the Kandla port.
The houses are again classified as “Do-wali” (Rs 2 rent), “Che-wali” (Rs 6 rent), “Dus-wali” (Rs 10 rent).

“The founder of Adipur-Gandhidham, Bhai Pratap, had distributed these houses with specific rents. The houses in Gandhidham and Adipur are arranged in sectors. Here in Adipur, we have wards each assigned a number instead of sectors. Today, these addresses are simple to understand and can help you navigate the area,” says Bhai Pratap Maitri Mandal member, Ramesh Vaswani.

“When Adipur-Gandhidham towns were founded, no Sindhi families were willing to live here. The place had snakes and other poisonous desert creatures. Bhai Pratap paid 50 paise for killing snakes and 25 paise for scorpions,” Gajwani says.

“There have been very few changes in the master plan of Gandhidham and Adipur. Regulations restricting heights of buildings, access to civic amenities, proximity to schools, hospitals and institutions to residential areas, direction of roads, use of hollow bricks in construction of houses to withstand earthquakes have been incorporated in the planning of the twin towns,’’ says Mohan Sajnani, general manager of SRC.

“Bhai Pratap wanted the twin towns to flourish as the Karachi port which made many Sindhi businessmen multi-millionaires. Today, Kandla port is one of the richest in the country.”